Why can't the news be more fun?

Randy Cohen writes a column called "The Ethicist" for the NY Times Magazine. He came on Aaron Brown's show and laid it straight on the line as far as what is at the heart of the WMD story. Brown was oviously uncomfortable with the whole exchange, though he couldnt't really knock Cohen's rather non-chalant statement of fact: Bush is either a liar or a fool. Here is the whole exchange, judge it for yourself:
BROWN: Perhaps not in your paper over at "The New York Times," but I assure you that television is the ultimate democracy. People vote all the time, and that's, right or wrong, honestly, we need to pay some attention to that, don't we? COHEN: Well, sure. And it's a story that should be covered. But the question is, how much is it covered? And what other stories are neglected in order to cover it? That, I think, is -- involves a professional ethical obligation to the people that you -- look to you and -- well, less so to me -- for news. BROWN: There's an interesting right or wrong, I'm not sure exactly where it centers, in this whole debate and discussion over weapons of mass destruction and what the government may have known, may have sort of known, but made it sound like maybe they knew more, all of that. What do you see there? COHEN: I see you being surprising gentle, Aaron. I think the story -- and I think this is the big ethical story of the week -- is many people are asserting that the president is a liar, that the president lied about -- in order to get our country into a war. That's a serious story. BROWN: Well, yes, but it's also -- that would be a very serious story. One should have evidence of that, though, shouldn't one, before one makes that argument? COHEN: Do you mean, before one drags the country into a war? BROWN: Well, that also. But before one asserts that anyone, including the president of the United States, is a liar, one ought to be able to prove that. COHEN: Well, it's an interesting problem, that the -- and more and more papers are reporting it now, that the president listed three causes for the war, Iraq was an imminent threat to us, and to its neighbors, that Iraq was connected with the events of September 11, and that there would be weapons of mass destruction there. None of these things have been found. And I think many people believe the burden is on the president to prove his case. And if he doesn't, he then, it seems to me, is either a liar or a fool, and that's a very awkward position to be in. BROWN: Well, couldn't -- how are we doing on time here? Oh, well, that answers that question.
(Aside: God but it is pathetic how these people try to cover for Bush. Someone comes right out and states in black-and-white terms the core of the problem and Aaron's first response is to ask his producer how long it will be before the commercial break.
BROWN: I mean not sure what the ethic -- Let me just go another minute, OK? We'll figure it out. I know you will. Why is the burden on the president, and why are those the two choices? Why isn't one of the choices that intelligence was simply wrong? They thought they were right, but they were wrong. That is also a possibility. COHEN: Well, yes, but the alternatives then are corrupt or incompetent. And that if you are so wrong about all three causes, then I wonder if you can honorably hold -- continue to hold your office. It's an important thing. Many people died. BROWN: They died (UNINTELLIGIBLE). COHEN: And the questions of his integrity have been raised by many places. BROWN: And I agree with that. COHEN: By members of both parties. I think it has to be taken seriously as an ethical matter, absolutely. BROWN: Usually we come, you know, you come in here and we yuk it up some. But... COHEN: Well, I -- it's a big week for ethics. BROWN: It is a big week. COHEN: And this is kind of the big ethical story, and it's a serious story. BROWN: It is a very serious story. We don't... COHEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I know, I like the funny ones so much better myself. BROWN: Well, we like them both, and we like you. Thanks for coming in
Poor Aaron. Why can't the news just be more fun?

Weapons of Mass Democracy

The new, unofficial title for supporters of Howard Dean.

Democratic wimps

I just found this William Raspberry column from last week. It's a few days old, but I want to hilight it because it demonstrates clearly why the Democrats continue to wimp out on us:
Conservative Republicans continue to set the national agenda. Right-wing media set the tone of the (often nasty) debate. And moderates -- liberals have all but decamped -- don't know what to do about it. Part of it is the Democrats' own fault, of course. They lost an election that should have been theirs on a gimme, requiring, for instance, only that their standard-bearer carry his home state -- or that the Supreme Court stay out of the matter. I mention that for a reason. Imagine, if you will, the same airtight campaign with the prize going to the Democrats, helped out publicly by officials sworn to neutrality. The airwaves would crackle with cries of righteous indignation and accusations of illegitimacy. The Republicans -- most certainly conservative Republicans -- wouldn't have let the matter die. The Democrats did. And while I'm glad they did -- we've strife enough without the sort of endless jabbing and rabble-rousing the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson promised to lead after the Supreme Court's delivery of the election to the Republicans -- it might serve as an illustration of the differences between the two parties.
Here we see the problem in a nutshell: even those Democrats who acknowledge the nature of the problem, that Democrats are wimpier then Republicans when it comes to fighting back, still think it is better not to fight back in order to preserve some illusion of civility. I'm sorry Mr. Raspberry but we left civility beaten and broken far back on the road and it was the Republicans who did the dirty deed. I see no reason to continue to maintain the illusion that it didn't happen. It's as if you think that somehow, by being all nicey-nice, the Democrats can lead the rest of the country by example. That dog won't hunt Mr. Raspberry. You go on to decry the compromising nature of the Democrats, but you completely fail to understand that it is your own attitude that it is a good thing that the Democrats don't fight back that is at the heart of that compromising nature. You are a wimp Mr. Raspberry. An intelligent and thoughtful wimp. A wimp who understands how fucked up things are right now. But a wimp none the less.

The Road Map to Re-Election...er...Middle-East Peace

I haven't really been paying that much attention to the details of Bush's Middle-East Road Map to Peace Tour (coming to a town near you!) I must confess to being surprised by the 0-60 engagement approach Bush has shown and have naturally wondered what is really going. It just seems so out of character for Bush to be so engaged on this issue when, up till now, he has demonstrated no significant concern about it. I think I just got my first clue from a Slate article by Samer Shehata (link courtesy Matthew Yglesias).
But not only does the road map show a slow route, it also lacks a destination. The plan promises to establish a viable Palestinian state by 2005 after a series of reciprocal steps on the part of both parties and two international conferences, but what this Palestinian state will look like is left unclear. In fact, none of the major issues facing Israel and the Palestinians — the status of Jerusalem, the future of Israeli settlers and Palestinian refugees, the establishment of borders, the guarantee of security — are addressed in concrete terms in the road map document. In my view, these core issues must be not only be addressed now; they must be resolved now. Guided only by a road map displaying a circuitous way to an unknown endpoint, both parties are bound to lose the confidence and momentum they currently have.
The conspicuous silence on the most contentious issues is not at all surprising considering that those are the issues that have derailed past peace efforts and Rove knows that those kind of failures look bad. How better to look engaged and triumphant than to trumpet a plan that only deals with the easiest parts of the conflict? But something else also caught my eye: the deadline for completion of the roadmap is 2005... ...one year after the 2004 election. I have to hand it to Rove. This is a brilliant strategy for dealing with the criticism Bush has received for his lack of engagement in the middle-east. First propose something that is fairly easy to accomplish, trumpet your success at achieving those things, but then put off the ultimate completion of the process until after the election. Anyone who attacks Bush now can be dealt with by simply saying that there is a plan in the works that will come to fruition after the election (underlying message: you better vote for Bush if you want it to work). I just knew there had to be something smelly about this deal. There always is when it comes to Bush.

Why would Bush and Blair lie?

Leah posts on the new spin coming out of the Bush defenders camp: why would Bush and Blair deliberately lie about Saddam having WMD knowing that, once Saddam was removed from power, the lack of those WMD would prove that Bush and Blair were lying in the first place? I agree with Leah that O'Reilly and company are doing damage control for Bush and Blair. I also agree that they are trying to put on the defensive anyone who suggest that something smells. Thus avoiding the need to actually answer the fundamental question: where are the WMD? But, even if that is what they are trying to do, that doesn't really answer the main point of their criticism, a point that will make a lot of sense to ordinary citizens: why WOULD Blair and Bush deliberately lie about something that could so easily be shown to be a lie? We can dismiss the attacks but we can't dismiss the argument because it will resonate with many people. Until we come up with a good response to this argument I predict that it will win the day. So what say you good folks? How do we respond to this spin?

Mayhaps we have already lost?

The DailyKOS brings us this story from the Washington Post about the continuing deterioration of the Iraqi situation and how it is over-taxing our military resources. This story just proves why it is a bad idea to do what we did without the support of the international community. We may have the biggest military in the world by far and can thus whip anyone's asses. But rebuilding a country takes a lot more resources then a bunch of guns. We have bitten off more than we can chew and now we are asking everyone else at the table to help us swallow. We are asking for help from the same people we were insulting just prior to taking the bite. I'm sure a few of them are rather amused at our travails while being simultaneously outraged at the mess we have created. They probably will eventually pull our butts out of the fire because there is no long term benefit to them from an Iraq in chaos or an America on the ropes. But they won't do it until they can get some significant concessions out of Bush. I wonder how Rove will spin that?

The Ensigns of Command

Nods to Tresy for reminding me of one of my "favorite" Bush quotes:
"I'm the commander. See, I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." -- Bush to Bob Woodward, in "Bush at War"
In the comment section that followed one anonymous poster replied:
As for fratboy fuckhead's assertion that "he's the commander": One of the thing good officers understand is that while they do indeed command, they have an obligation to those they command to accomplish the mission while husbanding their resources. One of those obligations is to not squander lives due to their own incompetence. This is why fratboy coward would last about five minutes in a combat situation. He's got Douglas Niedermeyer written all over his deserting ass...he'd be fragged in the space of days, if not hours, by his own troops, who would suss out in very short order that he's unworthy of respect and would throw their lives away in a heartbeat for his own glory.
I was just thinking about this this morning. A commander is not someone who, by right of their position, gets to order people around. A commander is someone who takes on the responsibility of using the resources under their command, especially the soldiers, in such a way that you accomplish your mission while also protecting the welfare of the people who have put their faith in you. Bush has failed on both counts. He has failed in his mission to find bin Laden, Saddam and WMD. At the same time he has consistently put the people he commands into harms way and continues to do so primarily for the purpose of propping up his own sagging poll numbers. He is a complete and utter failure as a commander and the quote above shows exactly why: because he thinks being a commander means being able to bark "Jump!" and having everyone say "How High?" That may work in the boardroom Mr. Bush (though I have my doubts about that as well), but it doesn't work in the field of battle.

Is Kerry "getting it"?

I've been critical of Sen. Kerry of late because I felt he was taking his candidacy for the nomination for granted (the same kind of mistake Gore made in the early 2000 campaign). I've also sided with Dean in his criticism of Kerry when the former said that we don't need a Dean-Lite either. Kerry's campaign up till now has been coasting and he has suffered for it (first in allowing Dean to pull even with him in New Hampshire and now losing ground in the polls in Iowa). However, I don't want to leave the impression that I don't think Kerry is incapable of getting fired up or firing up the base. Maybe he just needed someone to re-kindle his pilot light, because this Salon report of his appearance before the Take Back America conference indicates that Kerry may be starting to "get it" and isn't just trying to imitate Dean's angry-Democrat campaign.
Kerry, seriously seeking mainstream support, had to steer clear of crack house metaphors, but he was fairly masterful at rousing the crowd while tearing into Bush without pandering to the peacenik contingent in the house. He began by mocking Bush's Top Gun stunt, saying, "Landing on an aircraft carrier doesn't make up for a failed economic policy … Americans don't want photo opportunities, they want job opportunities." He went on, "Never before in American history has there been a reversal of economic fortune as in these last two years." Speaking of low-income families left out of the president's tax cut as a gift from heaven for campaign speechwriters -- he vowed to "crisscross this country" and hold the president accountable "for making a mockery of the words, 'leave no child behind.'" Kerry touched on several other progressive issues. He pledged support for alternative energy and spoke to war opponents (without criticizing the war) by saying, "We will never again have our young men and women in uniform held hostage to our dependence on Middle Eastern oil." He took a mandatory swipe at the one man progressives hate more than the president by saying, "It's imperative that we have a president who will appoint an attorney general who respects the Constitution." And he promised a "bold progressive internationalism for a new age," even as he criticized "those who see U.S. power as a malignant force in the world" and argued, à la Paul Berman, that "terrorism is the new fascism, the new communism, the new totalitarianism," bringing the whole thing off with such brio that even those who do see U.S. power as a malignant force ended up applauding.
I'm still a Dean man. Dean didn't need the scare of an insurgent campaign to put the fire into his spirit. He had it to begin with and is thus more likely to keep it burning through the long campaign ahead. Kerry still has to do a lot of work to show that he really does "get it". But this is a good start and I am glad for it.

Political date rape

I've said before that the only thing worse than having Bush as your enemy is to have him as your friend. Paul Krugman provides us another example of this phenomena:
According to The New Republic, Senator Zell Miller — one of a dwindling band of Democrats who still think they can make deals with the Bush administration and its allies — got shafted in the recent tax bill. He supported the bill in part because it contained his personal contribution: a measure requiring chief executives to take personal responsibility for corporate tax declarations. But when the bill emerged from conference, his measure had been stripped out. Will "moderates" — the people formerly known as "conservatives" — ever learn? Today's "conservatives" — the people formerly known as the "radical right" — don't think of a deal as a deal; they think of it as an opportunity to pull yet another bait and switch.
We are being lead by people whose approach to policy debates is to treat it as a kind of game where your score is based on how well you can get away with screwing people. And if the people you screw are your nominal friends then all the greater is your coup. And speaking of screwing:
Grover Norquist, the right-wing ideologue who has become one of the most powerful men in Washington, once declared: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Mr. Bush has made a pretty good start on that plan. Which brings us back to Senator Miller, and all those politicians and pundits who still imagine that there is room for compromise, that they can find some bipartisan middle ground. Mr. Norquist was recently quoted in The Denver Post with the answer to that: "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape."
No doubt Mr. Norquist would just tell Zell to lie back and enjoy it.

Facts On The Ground

Steve Soto has some interesting thoughts on how the Democrats should deal with certain Facts On The Ground (FOTG) with respect to national security and defeating Dubya. I appreciate Steve's analysis and I think I understand his points. But I can't help but think that this is more of the same kind of timidity in the face of inflated poll numbers that have dominated Democratic politics for several years now. There are two reasons Bush polls so high and neither of them have to with any measure of success. The first is that Bush never backs down from his blatant assertions, despite the evidence, that he is doing everything right. The second is the unwillingness of the opposition to call him on these assertions. As far as the Democrats are concerned the latter is the more changeable of the two. Bush's support is a self-sustaining phenomena enabled by the lackluster performance of the Democrats as an opposition party. If they were to actually call into question some of these FOTG they would receive heat in response but they would also plant the seeds of doubt. Without those seeds they cannot hope to bring down Bush. I'm sorry but the simple fact of the matter is that we must challenge Bush on these FOTG. We cannot concede anything to him where the facts so obviously contradict the spin that Karl Rove puts forward. We will suffer a lot of ridicule if we do this but that is all the more reason why we should do it: they wouldn't fight so hard to demean those who call these FOTG into question if they didn't understand that those facts are based on a foundation of illusion. They know they have to defend the outer dikes because the inner battlements are made out of cardboard. One of my mottos for this blog is "The snake bites hardest just before it dies". We shouldn't be afraid to go after Bush on these lies just because a large number of people have bought into the illusion. We shouldn't be afraid to go after him because of the backlash that will inevitably result. We have to go after them, if for no other reason, because they are lies. As long as they are allowed to remain unchallenged then Bush will be unstoppable. That is the real Fact On The Ground.

George W. Suess

Some people are just too clever.

milestones

I see I just got my 60,000 visitor. Not sure who was the lucky dog though. Thanks to everyone for listening. My audience may be small compared to the big boys but I appreciate the attention none-the-less.

Good timing

Anyone beside me think the timing of the publishing of Hillary's new book is propitious? At the exact moment when questions about Bush's honesty with respect to WMD are filling the airwaves we have the publication of a much-awaited book that talks about what happened the last time a President was caught lying. Remember, when Clinton lied nobody died.

Cheney is the Pointy-Haired-Boss

Read this story and then ask yourself this question, "How comfortable would I feel talking openly about my doubts about the bosses current pet project when the bosses 2nd in command is in the same room?" Cheney understands this principle very well. He doesn't have to tell them to how to tilt the intelligence reports. He just has to show up, lean over their shoulders, and ask, "How's it going?" Anyone who gave him an honest answer could count they days until they got their transfer notice.

What is the "Democratic Wing"?

Dave Johnson of Seeing The Forest has some good comments on this issue:
Being in the Democratic wing is about being an opposition party and standing up for the people of the country and the interests of the nation instead of cowering before the Bush intimidation machine, allowing the right to persue their radical agenda to take the country back to the 19th century. That's what it's about, not about being a leftie. And it's about getting it. Checking in with weblogs is getting it. Reading BuzzFlash is getting it. Understanding what the grassroots are talking about is getting it. THAT is why Governor Howard Dean is doing so well with the grassroots, and THAT is why Dean can use the phrase "from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."
I've been trying to point this out as well. I'm hearing comments from the left that Dean shouldn't use this phrase because he isn't as far to the left as Paul Wellstone was. I'm also hearing comments from the right that Dean's use of the phrase proves that he IS as far to the left as Paul Wellstone was. But Dave puts them right when he says that being from the Democratic wing means acting like a Democrat, not a lighter version of a Republican. It means distinguishing yourself from the opposition. It means acting like you actually are the opposition. That is what has been missing from the Democratic party and it is what Dean is bringing back to the party: a sense of purpose.

The Google News Democratic Presidential Poll for 6/4/2003

	6/4	5/28
John Kerry	(1) 2460	(1) 2760
Bob Graham	(2) 2260	(2) 2320
Joe Lieberman	(3) 2120	(4) 2220
Howard Dean	(4) 1930	(3) 2200
John Edwards	(5) 1910	(5) 2080
Dick Gephardt	(6) 1460	(6) 1640
Dennis Kucinich	(7) 1070	(8) 1020
Al Sharpton	(8) 861	(7) 1090
Carol Moseley Braun	(9) 442	(9) 732

The overall numbers for all the candidates continue to trend downward. The media cycle has moved off the Democratic race right now and is spending more time on events like the G8 summit and Bush's middle-east peace initiative. Dennis Kucinich passed Al Sharpton, possibly due to the AP report on his calling on the administration to release the evidence to back up their claims of Iraqi WMD. Lieberman moved ahead of Dean, more due to a drop-off in Dean reportage than anything Lieberman is doing I think. The institutional advantage Kerry, Graham and Edwards have in being significant players in congress cannot be discounted in these rankings. It's possible that this might be the first sign of a fall-off in interested in the Dean story since journalists are starting to get used to it. Kerry is still in the lead, but that lead is shrinking.

Integrity

Howard Dean appeared on last nights Charlie Rose and gave what I think was his best one-on-one interview yet. He seemed much more relaxed and even seemed to win over Rose despite the latter going at him with some pretty tough questions. One of the most interesting moments in the interview was when Rose pressed Dean on the whole "Democratic Wing" stuff. Dean made the point that I have been making for some time that his claim to representing the "Democratic Wing" has more to do with his determination to fight for core Democratic principals (universal health care, union support, etc.) rather than any broad-based support for leftist positions. It's a call to action rather than a statement of position on any individual issue. Rose then pressed him on the question of whether Dean, by criticizing the performance of the rest of the Democrat party, including his fellow candidates for the nomination, was, in effect, calling into question the integrity of those candidates. Dean stumbled a little bit on this point because he obviously did not want to get into a "gotcha" game (Rose, to his credit, admitted that it was a "gotcha" type question). But he eventually recovered when he pointed out that the problem for the other candidates was not whether they lacked integrity or not but whether they were perceived to lack integrity (I'm paraphrasing here). The point being that if your position on an issue appears to change depending on who you are talking to or the tenor of the times (war is popular, so you support war ... war becomes less popular, so you start criticizing war) it will be much harder to defend yourself against a charge of waffling. Sticking with one particular position despite the criticism is the best defense against criticism about integrity. Dean mentioned that this is probably the main reason why the American people perceive Bush as having integrity, even if they don't necessarily agree with him on the issues. Dean specifically pointed out that Joe Lieberman has been consistently for the military action in Iraq and is thus safe from criticism on this point. He did not name names, but it was obvious he was implying that Kerry would be in trouble because his support for the action in Iraq has been to equivocal. I don't think Dean is saying that Kerry has no integrity on this issue or that he is simply voting based on where the polls are. I think he is saying that Kerry does not have a strong enough opinion one way or the other on the matter and it shows in his subsequent statements on the issue. If we are to win over the muddled middle then we need a spokesman who will assert his position without equivocation, whether it be one way or the other. It's the expression of uncertainty that turns the voters off, much more so than the statement of a specific opinion.

Stating the obvious

Paul "The Mouth" Wolfowitz is giving Richard Pearle a run for his money in the race for Bush official with the most diarrhetic mouth.
Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil George Wright Wednesday June 4, 2003 Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil. The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt. Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."
The U.S. media will, of course, ignore this story. But, coming on top of the current firestorm in Britain, I definitely would not want to be in Tony Blair's shoes at this time. Update: Looks like Wolfowitz might have been taken out of context. The Left Coaster has more.

Neo-Progressivism

Harold Meyerson has a good op-ed in today's Washington Post about "Real Live Democrats". He never mentions Howard Dean by name, but the theme of the entire column is the return of the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party" and the DLC's foolish attempt to equate this neo-progressivism with the failed liberal politics of the 1980s.
In their zeal to demonize liberals, though, From and Reed miss the pragmatism that informs today's movement. On health care, the Campaign for America's Future manifesto argues that "the most sensible strategy [for a Democratic candidate] is to ask voters for a mandate for affordable care, vowing to put the leaders of both parties into a room until they emerge with a plan that addresses prices and guaranteed affordable care to all." What the DLC duo misses above all is the degree to which the radicalism of the current administration has concentrated the liberal mind on the need to unseating Bush in next year's election. Greens are even talking about lining up behind the Democrat. If From and Reed weren't so bent on fighting yesterday's wars, they would understand that the party's Democratic wing and its electable wing are really one and the same.
Pragmatism, along with anger, is one of the key elements in this movement. There is still the desire of many to push for their particular pet issue. But now, as never before in my lifetime, many have come to understand that all issues are supplanted in importance by the #1 goal of removing Bush and the rest of the Republicans from positions of power. I have commented previously that one problem the Democrats have had is that its constituents focus an inordinate amount of attention on their own little bailiwicks and lose sight of the big picture. The big picture is this: unless you get people sympathetic to your cause into power, no amount of campaigning for your cause will make any difference. Neo-progressivism is progressivism tempered by a spirit of pragmatism while inflamed by a sense of justified anger. It is essentially a set of principles that require us to disavow the failed politics of the past while unapologetically embracing the positions that have defined progressivism as the vital political movement that it is. * No more will we make the mistake of insisting on ideological purity in our candidates when the stakes are so high. * No more will we stand aside when our representatives allow themselves to be defined into ineffectiveness by the media operations of the opposition. * No more will we stifle justified anger in order to pursue some fantasy of non-partisan cooperation in the political sphere. * No more will we apologize for deeply held beliefs just because some people find them offensive and/or laughable. Sometimes it is more important to win the argument than it is to win friends.

Why vote for Dean

Jay over on Folkbum's Rambles and Rants has been publishing a series of essays on why he supports Dean. The first was on why there are so many early adopters to Dean's campaign. The second discusses the anger factor. The third, and most recent, addresses Dean's desire to re-unite the party and the country after 30 years of divisive Republican campaigning. I recommend all three to you.

Nobody Died When Clinton Lied

Spread it around.

Focusing Democratic anger

CNN LOU DOBBS MONEYLINE Aired June 2, 2003 - 18:00 ET DOBBS: Moving to political news tonight, a new round of polls concerning President Bush and Democrats. Less than two years ago, the president had a great deal of support from Democrats, but times have changed. Senior political analyst Bill Schneider has the story. ... SCHNEIDER: During his first eight months in office, President Bush's job approval rating among Democrats averaged only 30 percent, hardly a honeymoon. September 11 created a huge surge of unity in the country. Democrats rallied to Bush at the end of 2001, giving the president nearly 80 percent support. But it wore off quickly in 2002, especially after what Democrats saw as the president's harshly divisive midterm election campaign. So far this year, the president has averaged less than 40 percent support from Democrats, the latest figure, 32 percent. Democrats don't like his international policy. ... SCHNEIDER: Republicans cultivated an intense dislike for President Clinton in the 1990s. Has Democrats' antipathy toward Bush reached those epic proportions? The answer is, almost. Republicans' approval of Bill Clinton averaged about 26 percent over his eight years in office. Democrats aren't quite as angry as Bush as Republicans were at Clinton, but they're getting there. ... SCHNEIDER: Right now, Democrats say, by nearly 2-1, that they want a candidate who can beat Bush more than a candidate whom they agree with on the issues. And which candidate would that be? So far, no Democrat has really caught fire. Senator Joe Lieberman leads the field by a small margin because he's the best-known Democrat. But the largest number of Democrats say they can't decide whom to support. ... SCHNEIDER: So the message here is there is an army of angry Democrats looking for somebody to lead them, but you know what, they don't see anybody out there yet. ... DOBBS: You certainly have the evidence to support that view. But the idea that people would prefer, Democrats would prefer a candidate who will beat Bush rather than one that would agree with him on issues, that's a startling ratio. SCHNEIDER: That is. It is startling, because it says their prime motivation is to get Bush out of there and they're not likely to insist on ideological purity. It doesn't have to be the most liberal candidate. It has to be someone they think can beat Bush, which a lot of the Democrats are running on. They say, I'm the guy who can beat Bush. And if that's their argument, they're going to have to prove it. ... DOBBS: Kerry and Dean running hard in different directions, it seems. SCHNEIDER: Right. That's a very tight contest in New Hampshire, where Dean is from the neighboring state. Dean's the governor of Vermont; Kerry's the senator from Massachusetts. There's brewing a knockdown, drag-out fight between the two of them. John Kerry, there was a terrific profile of him in the "Washington Post" on Sunday, which described him as "complex, smart, nuanced," and I thought to myself when I read it, those are words people don't use when they talk about George Bush. They don't call Bush complex, nuanced, or even smart. So in a lot of ways Kerry is the un-Bush. And in the "New York Times" they did a profile of Governor Howard Dean of Vermont, and they described him as appealing to Democrats who are fed up with Al Gore, who said we want someone who's tough, who's in your face. So it could end up being a contest between Kerry, the un-Bush, and Dean, the un- Gore.
That's our crack establishment media for you. They only just now are noticing the palpable sense of anger that has been obvious to the rest of us for years. It's been growing for a long time. It was annoyed during the impeachment fiasco, it was outraged in 2000, it calmed down after 9/11, but it has returned even stronger after 2002 and everything since. If that anger can be focused effectively it will be a nearly unstoppable force. That is why I support Howard Dean. I support him because he is the only serious candidate in the Democratic field who both understands the nature of that anger and knows how to effectively focus it. The rest of them, Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards, are just beginning to become aware of it. The fact that it has taken them this long to realize it is another indication that they aren't qualified to take on Bush. Schneider, of course, is wrong in one part of his analysis. One candidate has "caught fire". But since it took him so long to notice what was obvious to the rest of us it isn't surprising that he hasn't noticed the boiling cauldron that is the Dean campaign.

Electability

Tonight I attended an organizational meeting of the local hosts for Wednesday's Dean Meetup. The question of Dean's electability came up. Someone brought this up as the #1 concern she heard from potential Dean supporters: "I like what the guy is saying and how he says it, but I don't think he can win." I was thinking about this afterward. It seems to me that the primary area where people think Dean may lose is on the question of national security. Specifically, his strong anti-war position with respect to Iraq won't play well in a country that appears so overwhelmingly supportive of Bush on his handling of the war. Some have already said that Bush has the national security issue tied up and that running an anti-war candidate against him would be political suicide. But let us ponder what the future could hold: 1) The situation in Iraq improves by the time the 2004 election rolls around. Bush will get all the credit. Even a Democratic candidate with strong national security credentials (Kerry, Graham, etc.) would have a tough time beating Bush in such a situation. After all, why would people change Presidents if things are working out? 2) However, if the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate then Bush, hopefully, will get a fair share of the blame for this. However, any Democrat who supported the war in Iraq will have a tough time going after him on this issue because he will always have to explain why he supported Bush in the first place. In other words, he will get blamed for it as much as Bush. Except, that is, if the Democratic nominee did not support the war in Iraq! So, with regards to electability, no Democrat in the running today can defeat Bush if Iraq gets better while an anti-war candidate would be in a stronger position against Bush if Iraq gets worse. Dean may very well be the most electable candidate in the field today.

This means war

Paul Krugman is through pussy-footing around. He's been trying for three years to point out the obvious fact to both the public and his colleagues in the journalistic profession that the Bushies are nothing but liars through and through. He first did it by trying to talk sense and coaching his words in euphemisms. But they just wouldn't listen. Well, it looks like he is through pulling his punches. He has declared war on the Bush administration, its sycophants in the media and the Democrats who provide the Republicans cover by their feckless performance as the opposition party. It is a beautiful thing to behold.
It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters — a group that includes a large segment of the news media — obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies. If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent — who supported Britain's participation in the war — writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks." It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. I could point out that many of the neoconservatives who fomented this war were nonchalant, or worse, about mass murders by Central American death squads in the 1980's. But the important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history — worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed, the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility. But here's the thought that should make those commentators really uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war. And suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, so Mr. Bush can fight what Mr. Hastings calls a "khaki election" next year. In that case, our political system has become utterly, and perhaps irrevocably, corrupted.
I think Mr. Krugman has put his finger on it when he suggests that the idea that we were deliberately deceived into this war is so disturbing to some commentators that they would just rather not consider the possibility. That rather continue to believe in some kindergarten myth about how American leaders are somehow incapable of that kind of gross deception. Oh sure, tinpot dictators in the third world may gin up these kinds of schemes. But not Americans! No, our leaders would NEVER do that! Would they Mr. Broder?

21st Century Democrats

It looks like there might be an alternative to the DLC within the Democratic party. It's an organization called "21st Century Democrats". Here's how they describe themselves:
21st Century Democrats, formerly Democrats 2000, was founded by progressive Democratic officials to give progressive and populist candidates the support they need to win elections. We identify candidates who need the support of the progressive community - and we make sure the support gets there. By organizing networks of elected progressives around the nation, we aim to advance progressive issues from affordable health care to fair taxes for all, from education to workers' rights, from protecting Social Security and Medicare to ensuring fair elections. We work closely with state legislators, mayors, city council members, school board members and statewide elected officials to build the next generation of Democratic leadership. Most importantly, we stand by our candidates from start to finish. We don't care who we offend or whose ego gets bruised. We're in the business of electing strong progressive and populist Democrats pure and simple. We see every year as a vitally important opportunity to elect progressive activists to office - and we're determined to make the most of it in 2003, 2004 and beyond.
Apparently this organization was founded 16 years ago by Jim Hightower, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL). The current board of directors includes James Carville! They have already come out strongly against the DLC's "divisive" tactics against Howard Dean, though they haven't officially endorsed Dean (yet). This definitely sounds like something worth paying attention to.

Goofus and Gallant run for President

It looks like Howard Dean might just be winning over Tom Tomorrow. Though I'm not sure I like the direct association of Dean with Goofus. Goofus has always been associated with the lazy kid who takes shortcuts and expects everything to go his way anyway. You know...kinda like the guy who is currently occupying the White House.

A circle of manipulators

There's a fascinating and disturbing article up today at the Phiadelphia Inquirer.
Iraq war looking less like a success Bush's advisers fear questions for which they have no answers. By John Walcott Inquirer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Some of President Bush's top advisers, who had hoped the war in Iraq would be the turning point in the battle against terrorism and the centerpiece of Bush's reelection campaign, fear it is instead becoming a political, diplomatic and military mess. "The postwar period in Iraq is messy. We haven't found what we said we'd find there and there are unpleasant questions about assumptions we made and intelligence we had," said one senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "If many more months go by and our troops are still there, the Iraqis are still fighting each other and us, and we still haven't found any WMD [weapons of mass destruction], there will be hell to pay." The situation in Iraq could rebound quickly, especially if U.S. forces can restore basic services and make headway in efforts to create a united civil authority. But for now, U.S. troops in Iraq are becoming the targets of anger and ambushes. Eleven Americans died last week from enemy action and accidents, and some of their civilian leaders now privately admit that the relatively small force that quickly overwhelmed the Iraqi military is too small to restore order in a nation the size of California. The U.S. attempt to hand over the country to an Iraqi civilian administration isn't faring much better, and Bush is expected to meet with L. Paul Bremer 3d, the top U.S. civilian in Iraq, in Qatar on Wednesday to discuss overhauling the U.S. administration in Baghdad for the second time in a month. A top U.S. official on Friday said Bremer's predecessor, retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, had failed, adding: "We lost a month because of Garner." A growing number of critics in Congress and some within the administration now suspect that a third problem, potentially the most serious, helps explain the military and political difficulties. These critics say that much of the administration's public rationale for the war, and much of its planning for the war and its aftermath, appears to have been based on fabricated or exaggerated intelligence that was fed to civilian officials in the Pentagon by Iraqi exiles eager for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein. The exiles' intelligence network, intelligence officials said, told Pentagon officials that, among other things, many Iraqi Shiites would welcome American troops as liberators, that some key generals would surrender their entire units, and that Hussein had sent a key operative to work with a small militant Islamic group, Ansar al Islam, that had ties to al-Qaeda. Officials in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the State Department all warned repeatedly that past experience with the exiles, led by Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, indicated that the intelligence they provided was unreliable at best. But Iraqi defectors produced by the Iraqi National Congress and other intelligence supplied by the group got a hearing in two important places: a special intelligence group set up by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and the New York Times. The Iraqi National Congress, U.S. intelligence officials said, bypassed the skeptics in the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency and fed the same information about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda to both places, so Pentagon officials would confirm what the Times was hearing and the newspaper would confirm what the Pentagon was hearing.
Here we see, writ-large, the problem with an establishment media far to willing to swallow the official line. A small group of Iraqi exiles played one group of gullible accomplices (PNAC inspired Defense Department insiders) off against another group of gullible accomplices (New York Times' journalists) and used them to reinforce each others impression of what was going on. The idea is pretty simple: (1) feed some "facts" to the Times and then tell the reporters to go talk to such and such at the Defense Department for confirmation and additional information. (2) At the same time, feed similar "facts", but not necessarily the same "facts", to such and such within Donald Rumsfeld's circle. (3) Wait for the two to start talking to each other. (4) The people from the Times will see the additional information from the Pentagon and say, "There must be something here because Don's boys are saying similar things". (5) The people at the Pentagon will listen to the inquiries from the Times people and say, "There must be something here because the Times is hearing similar information from their own sources." All the time, neither side quite realizes that the other side is being fed information from the same source. This is how a single-source story can be turned into a multiple source story. Of course, this does not preclude the possibility that some people with the Defense Department and the Times knew this was going on. Indeed, Chalabi and crew might have been advised to pull of this operation by PNAC. And, considering the case of Jayson Blair, some at the Times may have known the stories were shaky but smelled the opportunity to score a really big story and shelved their misgivings for the chance to get a Pulitzer (and a bigger paycheck) in the future. But then, even if we give these people all the benefit of the doubt as to their motives, we must still conclude that they were incredibly incompetent. The Pentagon insiders and the Times staff should have known not to rely on information from sources that were as obviously biased as was Chalabi's group. But then both of these groups are so convinced of their own superiority that they probably never considered the idea that they could be so easily fooled. "Inconceivable!" -- Vizzini